الفصل الفصل 25 · XI. Sidi Tart’ri Ben Tart’ri.

. XI. Sidi Tart’ri Ben Tart’ri.

SHOULD you ever drop into the coffee-houses of the Algerian upper town

after dark, even at this day, you would still hear the natives chatting

among themselves, with many a wink and slight laugh, of one Sidi Tart’ri

Ben Tart’ri, a rich and good-humoured European, who dwelt, a few years

back, in that neighbourhood, with a buxom witch of local origin, named

Baya.

This Sidi Tart’ri, who has left such a merry memory around the Kasbah,

is no other than our Tartarin, as will be guessed.

How could you expect things otherwise? In the lives of heroes, of

saints, too, it happens the same way--there are moments of blindness,

perturbation, and weakness. The illustrious Tarasconian was no more

exempt from this than another, and that is the reason during two months

that, oblivious of fame and lions, he revelled in Oriental amorousness,

and dozed, like Hannibal at Capua, in the delights of Algiers the white.

The good fellow took a pretty little house in the native style in

the heart of the Arab town, with inner courtyard, banana-trees, cool

verandahs, and fountains. He dwelt, afar from noise, in company with the

Moorish charmer, a thorough woman to the manner born, who pulled at her

hubble-bubble all day when she was not eating.

Stretched out on a divan in front of him, Baya would drone him

monotonous tunes with a guitar in her fist; or else, to distract her

lord and master, favour him with the Bee Dance, holding a hand-glass up,

in which she reflected her white teeth and the faces she made.

As the Esmeralda did not know a word of French, and Tartarin none in

Arabic, the conversation died away sometimes, and the Tarasconian had

plenty of leisure to do penance for the gush of language of which he had

been guilty in the shop of Bezuquet the chemist or that of Costecalde

the gunmaker.

But this penance was not devoid of charm, for he felt a kind of

enjoyable sullenness in dawdling away the whole day without speaking,

and in listening to the gurgling of the hookah, the strumming of the

guitar, and the faint splashing of the fountain on the mosaic pavement

of the yard.

The pipe, the bath, and caresses filled his entire life. They seldom

went out of doors. Sometimes with his lady-love upon a pillion, Sidi

Tart’ri would ride upon a sturdy mule to eat pomegranates in a little

garden he had purchased in the suburbs. But never, without exception,

did he go down into the European quarter. This kind of Algiers appeared

to him as ugly and unbearable as a barracks at home, with its Zouaves

in revelry, its music-halls crammed with officers, and its everlasting

clank of metal sabre-sheaths under the arcades.

The sum total is, that our Tarasconian was very happy.

Sancho-Tartarin particularly, being very sweet upon Turkish pastry,

declared that one could not be more satisfied than by this new

existence. Quixote-Tartarin had some twinges at whiles on thinking of

Tarascon and the promises of lion-skins; but this remorse did not last,

and to drive away such dampening ideas there sufficed one glance

from Baya, or a spoonful of those diabolical dizzying and odoriferous

sweetmeats like Circe’s brews.

In the evening Gregory came to discourse a little about a free Black

Mountain. Of indefatigable obligingness, this amiable nobleman filled

the functions of an interpreter in the household, or those of a steward

at a pinch, and all for nothing for the sheer pleasure of it. Apart from

him, Tartarin received none but “Turks.” All those fierce-headed pirates

who had given him such frights from the backs of their black stalls

turned out, when once he made their acquaintance, to be good

inoffensive tradesmen, embroiderers, dealers in spice, pipe-mouthpiece

turners--well-bred fellows, humble, clever, close, and first-class hands

at homely card games. Four or five times a week these gentry would

come and spend the evening at Sidi Tart’ri’s, winning his small change,

eating his cakes and dainties, and delicately retiring on the stroke of

ten with thanks to the Prophet.

Left alone, Sidi Tart’ri and his faithful spouse by the broomstick

wedding would finish the evening on their terrace, a broad white roof

which overlooked the city.

All around them a thousand of other such white flats, placid beneath the

moonshine, were descending like steps to the sea. The breeze carried up

tinkling of guitars.

Suddenly, like a shower of firework stars, a full, clear melody would

be softly sprinkled out from the sky, and on the minaret of the

neighbouring mosque a handsome muezzin would appear, his blanched form

outlined on the deep blue of the night, as he chanted the glory of Allah

with a marvellous voice, which filled the horizon.

Thereupon Baya would let go her guitar, and with her large eyes turned

towards the crier, seem to imbibe the prayer deliciously. As long as

the chant endured she would remain thrilled there in ecstasy, like an

Oriental saint. The deeply impressed Tartarin would watch her pray, and

conclude that it must be a splendid and powerful creed that could cause

such frenzies of faith.

Tarascon, veil thy face! here is a son of thine on the point of becoming

a renegade!